CABLE DRAMA: The failed mega-merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable has given rise to a cable industry game of thrones. Now it looks like two giants, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, are vying for the same prize: Bright House Networks, the Newhouse family-owned operator with two million customers, WSJ reports. For Charter, acquiring Bright House and its strong cash flows would give it more financial muscle to tackle Time Warner Cable (its last attempt to acquire the company more than a year ago fell flat). Charter announced an acquisition of Bright House in March, but that was contingent on the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal going through. For Time Warner Cable, acquiring Bright House could blunt Charter’s play while making itself a pricier acquisition target.

YOUTUBE’S PITCH: Before Bruno Mars took the stage at its upfront, YouTube laid out why advertisers should believe the Google-owned video service — and just watch. YouTube made the case to marketers that its stars have growing influence, and that the service carries a young and engaged audience, CMO Today reports. All the while, YouTube didn’t miss opportunities to mention cord-cutting as a dig at TV or auto-play videos as a slam against Facebook. It’s interesting to note how YouTube’s ad pitch has transitioned through the years. While the service used to promote its relationships with a growing stable of Hollywood types, now YouTube is arguing its own fleet of stars are perhaps more important, and that advertisers should get with the digital times.

WHAT’S IN A TWEET: Twitter shares took a tumble earlier this week after the social media company missed its revenue estimate, citing a “demand problem” for its direct-response ads. CMO Today reports that those ads, in which marketers pay for user actions like downloading an app or clicking through to a website, have struggled to catch on with advertisers because the company has had trouble demonstrating results. Marketers are looking for more evidence that the money they are spending on social media actually produces results: an app downloaded, a purchase made, etc. Part of the issue is that the two big kahunas, Google and Facebook, offer easier ways to measure return-on-investment (granted, they’ve been at it longer). Twitter, for its part, says it is making investments to improve its direct-response capabilities.

NON NIELSEN: With channels like MTV and Nickelodeon that skew toward younger viewers, Viacom has felt the brunt of changing American viewing habits more than most media companies. Ratings across all of Viacom’s networks dropped 22% last quarter, but the company’s domestic ad revenue only fell 5%, better than last quarter, WSJ reports. At a time when more people are watching TV content on devices like tablets and gaming consoles, Viacom is arguing louder than any other company that traditional Nielsen ratings aren’t capturing all viewing. During this season’s spring ad market, Viacom has said it will try to use newer ad products with first and third party data in order to circumvent the traditional system, and it eventually wants to bring its “non-Nielsen dependent” ad revenue to 50% from 30% in three years.

COMCASTUBE?: Don’t expect Comcast to take that long licking its wounds from its abandoned takeover of Time Warner Cable. The Information reports that Comcast will likely launch a new short-form video service that would “promote videos alongside on-demand TV shows.” Call it Comcast’s YouTube killer. Indeed, the cable and broadband company has hired employees from YouTube to help with the effort, which has been in the works for at least a year and a half but was sidelined to focus on the ill-fated merger.